


Mafalda's War

by wolflove



Series: The Last Prewett [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action, Drama, F/F, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Importance of Family, Importance of Friends, Inner Workings of Slytherin House, M/M, Marcus will enter into things post hogwarts, Multi, No One Is Perfect, POV First Person, Romance, This will get dark, Traditionalism vs Purism, things will happen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolflove/pseuds/wolflove
Summary: Everyone has their own battles to fight. Everyone has their very own war raging around them and within them. This is mine.





	Mafalda's War

**Author's Note:**

> No beta.
> 
> So in the middle of a chapter for The Howling, the next installment to this series hit me. I had to get it put down. This is a fic that will explore some touchy subjects regarding family, some politics, war, and psychosis. It will all be from Mafalda's POV.
> 
> I own nothing involving the Harry Potter world.

They wouldn’t hide. But then, I refused to hide as well. I had returned to Hogwarts that year knowing I was allowed by the grace of the name I bore, the lineage I held flowing within my blood. The Carrows brought it out, spread that information held close to my chest to the winds. The Carrows mad _her name_ pass my lips. It had been that or death.

_Maddalena Zabini._

The woman who bore me. The woman who left me. Did not want me.

The crazy, never mentioned squib aunt of Blaise Zabini, his birth father’s sister.

Thirteen years of age and I stood proud at the piercing brown eyes of Ginny Weasley watched. Hair as red as my own, but straight were mine fell in large sausage curls. Brown eyes where mine were the mossy green of the Prewett line. A brave girl who was the champion to all younger years… all except me, her cousin. My small, petite frame shook in the aftermath of the Cruciatus. Tremors that would take hours to disappear.

I walked from the Great Hall alone with my back straight, my tattered pride clutched close. Ignoring how my own screams echoed within my mind. I made it to the stairs before I felt the hand on my arm. Having been concentrating so hard on just moving, on taking that next step forward I hadn’t heard him until he was there. Skin like cinnamon spiced hot cocoa, eyes and bone structure holding an exotic edge from his Italian heritage. Our shared Italian heritage.

“Keep walking,” he said in a low voice, as if afraid to be overheard.

His hand on my arm helped. It steadied me and helped me move a bit faster, but not by much. We didn’t head to the dungeons, instead he moved toward empty and unused classrooms on the third floor. Until we were in one and he moved me to a table, even lifted me as if I weighed nothing to sit on top of a desk covered in dust.

It left me face to face with him.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” He asked, looking frustrated, perhaps even a bit angry, and other emotions I dared not name. I couldn’t.

“Why would I?” I tried keeping my voice even, but it broke. Betraying me as my body did, still trembling.

“You would have been saved so much grief, and I could have protected you. From this, from everything.” He said, all those emotions pushing through his cultured voice.

Though I still shook in the aftermath I sat up straight and tilted up my chin. He would later tell me, waxing all poetic, that my eyes flashed and brightened with my determination and pride.

“Just because of a woman who bore and left me? Because of a name and some blood in my veins? It doesn’t make me different from a moment ago, an hour ago… Doesn’t make me different from that moment I first crossed onto the Platform. Why does knowing this make any difference when you haven’t cared all along?” My body shook, my voice cracked, but I could at least keep my gaze steady.

Blaise didn’t back down. He met that gaze. “Do not compare me to the Weasley brood. I can see those wheels in your head, _fragolina_.” Blaise pointed to her temple. “Sì, I can see it. I know. I _saw you_ the moment you stepped on that stage, Mafalda. Before your name was called, before that hat was placed on your head and sent you my way. I’ve seen you since. So tiny, so frail looking, like a porcelain doll with your baby doll face and red hair. Yet so strong. I am four years ahead of you, without common links I could do nothing but watch that indomitable pride of yours as you took on everything on your own. Silently.”

I did not shrink away as Blaise tucked a finger under my chin, my mind tumultuous as words continued to poor from him.

“That proud tilt of your chin, with eyes and ears that soaked up all the knowledge around you. Daphne, Tracey and Millicent saw it as well. They could, at least, point you in the right way, give you tools to succeed. But now all of them be damn, _fragolina_ , you are my cousin. My blood. I am not the Weasley’s to ignore and shun you. Blind to your strength and determination. I am not blind to the struggles you have faced or the pain you have endured.” That fierceness and intensity that had built within Blaise as he spoke sudden softened and that along scared me and cracked the defenses within me.

“I can finally try to help ease the loneliness those like you and I are subjected to in the way only family can.” I refused to admit how the trembling was no longer just the aftermath of a curse.. Refused t admit to the burning of my eyes or how even my breath shook. How Blaise’s large, warm hands cupping my faced cracked my defenses even more.

“Neither of us need to be alone in the Snake Den anymore, Mafalda.” Blaise then shattered every wall within with one simple, chaste kiss to my forehead.

My eyes closed and my entire being shuddered before great, wreaking sobs left me and I was then in warm, strong arms. Clinging to a boy who not so long ago was just another face in the crowd. I held onto him tightly, hands fisted in his school robes.

“Sh, sh, sh, _mimma_ , let it out. You are safe with me.”

Then our moment was shattered.

“Safe with you, Zabini? As if you have ever protected anyone but yourself.”

I froze there with my face hidden against Blaise’s shoulder and I could feel his entire body stiffen, his arms tightened around me a bit more making me feel… protected. He pulled me down from the table and covertly handed me a kerchief which I used to wipe my face, the need to cry evaporating quickly with Ginny Weasley’s presence.

“I had no knowledge there was anyone beyond myself or my mother to protect until now. Tell me, little Weasley, can you say the same? You and your brothers knew at least from the moment her name was called out when she arrived. From the hair to the freckles to the name… and yet none of your did anything for her. Left the daughter of squibs, raised in the muggle world, to fend for herself in a House teaming with Purebloods whose parents had fanatically in some cases followed the Dark Lord. And since the start of this year when you’ve so bravely taken punishments for others, did you once ever do so for Mafalda? Did you ever try to protect her? Your cousin, your own blood?” Blaise’s voice was even and controlled, but I could see the anger he held in his body language as I turned to them, face now clean.

“She chose her side when she didn’t even try reaching out to us. Like you said to me, it’s not like she didn’t know.”

I got angry then and brushed past Blaise, even though Ginny was taller than me, broader and more stoutly built. “I did! Every year I tried.” My eyes were burning again, I was still trembling, my voice still broke. “My first year I tried to warn the twins a teacher was coming but they sneered at me and then blamed me for telling when a teacher did come and caught them. I tried to congratulate Ron last year after a Quidditch match, but I was brushed aside.” I was crying again and I hated myself for it. “Last week I stepped in the way of a Hex Pansy was forced to throw at you in the hall because Alecto Imperiused her.”

I watched Ginny’s eyes get large.

“So that’s why the girls were agitated last week,” I heard Blaise muse behind me. I felt Blaise’s hand on my shoulder as his other hand took the kerchief and tilted my face to wipe away my tears. “As you have now been told, she wasn’t ignoring you and your brothers. She reached out her hand and even protected you. It seems the Light isn’t as good and pure as they think, and perhaps those in the Shadows are not so evil and irredeemable as you think, little Weasley.”

I looked from Blaise to Ginny as they stared at each other, Blaise determined and righteous, Ginny with her courage and guilt.

“It’s okay, Zab-Blaise. I don’t need them.” I told him, reaching up to squeeze his hand that still rested on my shoulder.

“Right you are, _fragolina_. Let's get you back to the dorms. You need rest. Weasley, move out of the way.”

I stood there with Blaise a moment until Ginny did indeed move, and then Blaise was helping me walk again. This time toward the Dungeons and toward my House. Where my bed was waiting for me. No one mentioned the tremors or the redness to my eyes. No one questioned Blaise as the dark-skinned boy ushered me through the common room and to the girl's dorm. No one questioned his relinquishing me to Millicent Bulstrode who helped me through the doorway to the girls dorms and, once the door closed, promptly swept me up into her arms and carried me to my bed. Millicent said nothing as she tucked me in. Not until my curtains closed, and then only to cast wards upon them which would keep me safe as I slept.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
